This paper is concerned with the entropy generation in a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) pseudo-plastic nanofluid flow through a porous channel with convective heating. Three different types of nanoparticles, namely copper, aluminum oxide and titanium dioxide are considered with pseudo-plastic carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC)-water used as base fluids. The governing equations are solved numerically by shooting technique coupled with Runge-Kutta scheme. The effects of the pertinent parameters on the fluid velocity, temperature, entropy generation, Bejan number as well as the shear stresses at the channel walls are presented graphically and analyzed in detail. It is possible to determine optimum values of magnetic parameter, power-law index, Eckert number and Boit number which lead to a minimum entropy generation rate. ª 2015 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).